Small Silences
by adele4
Summary: Set after season two. After telling Arthur about his magic doesn't go over that well, Merlin finds himself at Gwen's house five evenings in a row, and a few more secrets come out.


_Disclaimer: I don't own BBC's Merlin or any of the characters, this is just for fun and no profit is being made_

_Set after season two, contains spoilers for both seasons._

* * *

**Small Silences**

* * *

It had become a sort of ritual, over the last four days: late in the evening, long after dinner-time, there would be a commotion outside her door, and then Merlin would come crashing in, sometimes arms full of something too encumbering or heavy for one person to carry while simultaneously opening a door, and looking utterly exhausted. She had come to expect it, looking forward to it, even more so because it was lonely, these days, with Morgana gone and Arthur avoiding her for reasons she could guess. But she hadn't been certain about today. Still she had kept part of her dinner, cold vegetables and bread, and had found herself waiting for the noise.

Yet, when it came, she almost missed it: a quiet, timid knocking on her door; then silence. Then another knock, only barely louder than the first one. She stood up.

When she opened the door, she found Merlin standing outside in the darkness, hand unsurely raised for another knock that might not have come. His hands were empty this time, but he looked so tired that in spite of herself she found herself moved.

"Come in," she said, more kindly than she had planned, and moved aside; Merlin entered and when she closed the door, leaning against it, he had slumped down on a chair, and once again she found herself exasperated: "What was it this time?" she asked.

"Didn't you see me?" he asked, and gestured vaguely in the air. "I was cleaning the courtyard."

"The whole courtyard?" she said, with less disbelief than she would have four days earlier, because she was beginning to know what to expect. "By yourself."

He smiled ruefully.

"I didn't quite finish it."

Her resolve crumbled.

"Let me talk to him."

"No!" he cried out automatically and raised a hand as if to hold her off. "It's – just, no."

She leant her head against the door, tired.

"Then what are you going to do?"

He looked down at his hands.

"I don't know," he said, just as he had the first day.

* * *

She'd been in the back of the house; it had still been light outside when he'd all but crashed into her house, arms full of armour.

"Can I come in?" he cried, before she had time to grow worried about the commotion.

"Please... do?" she said, a little late for that, coming running to the front, and raised her eyebrows as priceless armour clattered onto her floor in front of her.

Merlin let out a deep breath.

"Only, Gaius is going to _kill_ me."

She looked from Merlin's face to the armour, suddenly afraid.

"Did something happen to Arthur?" she asked. This was absurd, Merlin wouldn't be here talking about Gaius being angry if that was the case, but of late, since Morgana had disappeared, it felt like the people she cared for could vanish in the blink of an eye; it wasn't rational; Arthur had been in dangerous situations all the time before, yet now...

"No," Merlin said quickly, and she could breathe again. "No, Arthur's fine. But if I stay near him he'll find even _more_ work for me, and I really need some place to stay for a bit..." He trailed off.

"You can stay as long as you want," Gwen said warmly, and meant it. She looked from him to the pile of armour on the floor and back up. "What happened?" she asked.

Merlin opened his mouth, and closed it again, and opened it to say something completely unexpected:

"I told Arthur that I'm magic," was what he said.

Gwen gave him a blank look.

"Why would you do that?" she asked, nonplussed, because it didn't make sense; Merlin just looked at her silently, and there was something in his face, pained and pleading, that gave her pause. "You're not..." The thought, impossible a moment ago, took shape in her mind.

"No?" Merlin said weakly, even as she sunk down on a chair with a "oh God."

It should have been an earth-shattering revelation. Merlin was magic, Merlin who was her friend and brought Morgana flowers and argued with Arthur all the time and who had saved her life. Magic.

"Since when?" she asked; he looked at her blankly. "How long have you been – magic?"

"Oh." He looked down. "Er. Always? Since my birth."

Now _that_ seemed unbelievable.

"Why would you have come to Camelot if you're a sorcerer?" She paused. It hadn't been worded like that before, and maybe she had misunderstood something. "Are you a sorcerer?"

"Uhm, yes." He leaned against the door, still looking pleading.

Something surfaced in her thoughts, or maybe it was because she was on her mind all the time, now more than ever. Her dreams and fears and the lurking supposition in the back of both their mind, never shared...

"Did –" She caught herself, frightened. "Does Morgana know?"

He looked taken aback.

"No," he said, in a strained tone, and then the words came flooding out: "But if I had told her, maybe I wouldn't have – maybe she would still be _here_."

That didn't really make sense; but something dawned on her:

"So you told Arthur."

Merlin nodded, silently.

"What did he say?"

Merlin gestured at the pile at his feet.

"He wants me to mend and polish his armour." He looked back up. "It's supposed to take me all night." A pause. "Without magic."

There was probably a lot to say to that, from what exactly Arthur and Merlin had said to did Merlin really use to do his chores with magic all the time, but it could wait; Gwen got up and got her utensils from the forge.

* * *

The second day, it was socks. Heaps of them. More than even a prince should own. Arthur must have raided and torn up half the castle's supplies.

"He won't _talk_ to me," Merlin said, sitting across of her; Gaius knew by now, so there had been no practical reason to avoid home today, yet he had found his way to her all the same. "When I try to bring it up it's 'don't be silly, Merlin, you'd never master magic' and if I can't be magic why does he watch me like a hawk while I darn his stupid socks like I'm going to set them on fire?!"

He gave the sock in his hand a vicious poke, then, giving up, held a hand over it and murmured a few words; the hole closed itself up; it looked beautiful, the way the fabric sprung to life and extended itself.

Gwen put her own sock down on her lap and took the magically repaired one.

"It doesn't look any different," she said, after eyeing it critically.

Merlin hesitated. He raised a hand towards the still not mended pile, got a concentrated and, Gwen noted, _happy_ look on his face, and that too was beautiful – and then let his hand sink again.

"I can't," he said.

Gwen pressed her lips together.

"You're not helping anyone by humouring him."

"I know," he said. "But if I don't, he'll think..." His shoulder slumped down.

Gwen sighed. She _understood_ Arthur, that made it worse perhaps; even to her, it had been a shook to find that someone so close to her could be a sorcerer, and had kept it a secret from her all this time. But, unfair as it might be, Arthur had more power than her and less right to be irrational about his reaction, and this, without being the condemnation Merlin must have feared too, was still hurting him.

"I'll talk to him," she offered.

"No. Please don't. He'd – I want it to me because he _trusts_ me, not..."

Gwen, who had taken up her work again, let her hand sinks.

"Merlin, he does trust you. Do you think he would have let you stay, free, if he thought you're dangerous to anyone in Camelot?"

Merlin paused and seemed to think this over.

"I know," he said. "I mean, he could have dragged me to a pyre and he _didn't_. But I want –" He trailed off. Acceptance, for his own sake, Gwen understood, not out of a sense of duty she might install in him. "Don't talk to him. I'll be fine."

She nodded, defeated, and returned to her work. Not against his will, of course.

"Thanks though," Merlin said after a moment of silence, with a little smile, the first she had seen in too long. "For offering. And for helping with this. Really."

She felt herself smile back.

"You're welcome."

* * *

The third day had brought a tired Merlin returning from mucking out stables all day. He drained the glass of water she brought for him in one trait; they had no work today, and ate together in companionable silence. Later she heard about things he had done which he hadn't told her about yet, and she realised that parts of him she hadn't known at all before, the absolute, murdering fierceness with which he would protect those he cared for. It frightened her a little, and yet made her love him all the more. She had to think of Morgana.

"I miss her so much," she admitted, after dinner, then caught herself, thinking of all he had just told her, of Freya and his father. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, you've been through so much and I'm just talking about myself, you must think –"

"No," he said, quickly, stopping her. "I miss her too." His voice was oddly flat when he said it, but she only noticed that in retrospective.

She looked down at her lap, interlacing her fingers. She was wearing one of the many dresses Morgana had given her, a blue and yellow one, new, not one of her own old ones like it would have been custom. Had had not been given with the usual warmth; there had something almost guilty about Morgana's countenance, like she meant to apologize for her resent brusqueness and knew not how, and there had never been such unease between them before. But she had worn it, thinking: I will not save this. She will be back.

She had taken up small smithing jobs, to pass the lonely hours of the day more than anything else; her salary was still being paid: the king no more than her admitted the possibility that his ward's disappearance could be permanent.

"It's just – I keep going to her chambers on accident, almost expecting her to be here and..." She stopped herself. Despite what he had said, it felt unfair for her to wail about her own loss, with the ones he had had to bear in silence. "Can't you do anything?" she asked.

He shook his head. He left shortly thereafter, oddly taciturn all the sudden.

* * *

He stumbled into the room tiredly not long after sundown the next day; he looked preoccupied, and for a moment she thought that maybe that was a good sign, that something had happened, even if not everything had been resolved; Arthur had dragged him out hunting, she had heard, alone.

"No," he answered her question when they had settled down. "Every time I tried to say something he snapped at me for chasing away the game, and when I did say something it was like he hadn't heard me!" He tore the bread in front of him apart. "And he wants me to skin and pluck his kills until tomorrow and probably cook and seasons them and make a cap out of them!" For the first time, he actually sounded angry.

"I'll help," Gwen said.

"No," Merlin said, and pushed his untouched meal away. "I'll do it alone. I only came because I need to tell you something."

"I already know you're magic," she pointed out, with a smile; his face remained serious. "We can talk while we work," she offered.

"It's about Morgana," he added, ignoring her; she stilled at that, and feared the worst when she saw the painful look on his face as he spoke.

"Did you hear something...?"

He shook his head.

"No, but –" He took a deep breath. "You should know something about Morgause." he looked away. "She cares about her. About Morgana. When I said I had hope that she wouldn't hurt her – I _know_ she won't. She didn't take her away because she wanted to hurt her, or us. She did because she loves her and..." He stumbled over his words. "And thought she would be happier elsewhere."

Gwen stared at him in silence. Part of her was unable to process this new information, reshape her idea of this woman she had thought she hated. She remembered Morgana had said that Morgause had come to her, when she had challenged Arthur, and talked to her kindly.

"I'm sorry," said Merlin, when she gave no answer. "I should have told you sooner."

"Yes, you should have." She stood up, feeling cold. Morgana was safe. Morgana was _safe_, wherever she was. It was almost too wonderful to believe.

"It's just – I'd gotten so used to keeping everything a secret, and part of it isn't _my_ secret..."

"Morgana's magic," Gwen guessed. It seemed an easy leap. Part of her had known for a long time.

Merlin nodded.

Gwen made a few paces through the room.

"How could you keep this from me?" she asked. "I thought she could have died. Or _worse_." And in a way she even understood, and yet the _fear_ she had felt...

"I'm sorry," he said, not meeting her eyes; there was something else, she thought fearfully. "I – I need to go now. Pluck Arthur's birds."

She didn't hold him back.

* * *

"It can't go on like this," she said; she had barely talked to Arthur these days, he had to know where Merlin spent his evenings; and she had sympathy for Arthur pushing away a knowledge that had to tear at so many of the things he'd been taught, that put him in such a false situation vis-à-vis of his father, but it wasn't fair to Merlin.

"I know," he said, without looking up.

She pushed herself off the door.

"Do you want to eat? I left you something."

He didn't move, only his hands closed convulsively on his lap. Then, as if coming to a decision, he looked up at her.

"I poisoned Morgana," he said.

She stumbled back against the door.

"What?" she said. She had heard him; she just couldn't believe she'd heard right.

"I poisoned Morgana," he repeated, and looked away, like there was something in her gaze he couldn't bear; in a hasty voice he went on: "I had no choice. Morgause put a spell on her to put the whole castle asleep – you weren't there, it was like Camelot was _dead_. And she was attacking, and the dragon told me the only way to break the spell was to kill her. So I poisoned her."

"What you said yesterday was wrong," Gwen said, voice barely above a whisper. "She's dead."

"What? No! No, Morgause lifted the spell, and I told her what poison I used, and she fled with her – that's why I'm so sure she wouldn't hurt her, she'd rather renounce to her revenge than see her hurt. And I – there's an antidote. She must have found it."

The last sentence was spoken fervently; Gwen could guess at the horrible doubt that must have plagued him this whole time.

Merlin glanced back up at her pleadingly.

"I didn't know what else to do," he said.

"Would you have done it," she asked, her voice sounding foreign to her own ears, "if it had been Arthur?"

There was a pause.

"I don't know," he said, looking back down.

They were silent.

"I should have told you that sooner too," he said, and added: "It makes it more real."

"You haven't told Arthur," said Gwen. He shook his head. "We need to find her." He looked at her questioningly. "We have to talk to Arthur, and then we need to find Morgana. You're wrong: Morgause doesn't care for her enough not to put her in danger."

"She couldn't know that I –"

"She used her," Gwen snapped, hurling the anger she couldn't quite bring herself to throw at him at that unknown woman. "She had no right to do that. She's not safe there. Maybe she doesn't know that."

"She might not be safe in Camelot either," said Merlin, quietly.

Gwen was silent, trying to calm herself.

"You're right," she said after a moment, more composedly. "But she should get to chose. And maybe..." And maybe she wanted to be where Morgana was, even if it meant leaving everything else behind. But more than anything, she needed to know that she was safe. "Can you find them?"

"We've been back to the place where she led Arthur last time. There's nothing there. Just a lake."

"Have you tried everything you can? Everything?"

He shook his head.

She walked towards him, held out her hand.

"We have to try," she pleaded.

He took he hand and let her pull him up. They stood together like that for a moment, his hand sweaty in hers.

"This will be a lot easier without having to hide my magic from Arthur," he remarked. "If he comes."

"He'll come," Gwen said, confidently. It would be strange, travelling with him alone, for they couldn't risk bringing anyone else if Merlin was to use his powers to their full effect (though he was very used to sneakiness) with all the things that could not be looming between them. And yet, treacherously, part of her was looking forward to it.

She squeezed Merlin's hand.

"I'm angry," she admitted when he glanced at her in askance. "But I'm sorry you had to go through that alone."

He smiled weakly at her.

"Not anymore," he said, and squeezed back. They went hand in hand to Arthur's rooms.

* * *

_fin_

_Comments are always greatly appreciated!_


End file.
